38 HUNTING CAMPS. 



for game at that time happened to be very scarce on the 

 northern shores of the lake, so much so, in fact, that after 

 several days' hunting, which resulted in a total bag of two 

 upland geese, food was at so low an ebb with us that we were 

 reduced to eating a horse we were obliged to shoot. As 

 birds were few and far between on that arid strip of country, 

 I did not carry a shot-gun, but had to deal with those I saw 

 to the best of my power with a rifle. In this way I shot 

 ducks, swans, geese, and ibis. I had met with an accident 

 that prevented my getting about as readily as usual, but as 

 soon as I could travel I rode on the back trail as far as 

 the River Fenix, near to which I had seen some game, and 

 there I found and stalked a single guanaco. The death of 

 this old buck, besides being most opportune from the com- 

 missariat point of view, seemed to mark the turning point 

 of my ill-luck in hunting, for on the next day I shot another 

 guanaco close to camp, and later in the afternoon found for 

 the first time the tracks of a guemal in a gulley near the 

 lake, but failed to catch a sight of the deer itself. 



About a week after one of my men observed a guemal 

 buck and some does while making camp near Mount Pira- 

 mide, but crossing to windward they made off. Near this 

 mountain, during the previous year, my friend Mr. Waag, 

 of the Argentine Boundary Commission, had shot several 

 guemal. I was therefore rather disappointed at my vain 

 search, but- thought it not unlikely that the fact of being 

 hunted by Mr. Waag's party had driven the deer away 

 from that particular spot. I hunted, riding perse veringly 

 over the ground pointed out by the Indian, for nearly a 

 whole month without success before I discovered a district 

 where they were plentiful ; this was a high strip of table- 

 land between the rivers de Los Antiguos and Jeinemeni, 

 which flow into Lake Buenos Aires from the southern 

 mountains. ] 



To reach these mountains entailed a sixty miles' ride, 





